Peter Suber on the state of Open Access: Where are we, what still needs to be done?

Philosopher,
jurist, and one-time stand-up comic, Peter Suber was one of the small group of
people invited by the Soros Foundation to the Budapest
Open Access Initiative (BOAI) meeting held in
Hungary in 2001. It was in Budapest that the term Open Access was chosen, and a
definition of OA agreed.

And it was Suber
who drafted that definition, doing so with
words that still stir, inspire, and motivate OA advocates everywhere.

It was also Suber
who chose to make the biggest sacrifice for the cause. In 2003 he gave up his
position as a tenured full professor to become a full-time advocate for the
movement, swapping secure employment for a series of uncertain, short-term
grants.

Suber is also
the author of the definitive book on Open Access, which is itself now available OA.

Who better then
than Peter Suber to summarise the current state of Open Access, outline what
still needs to be done, and suggest what the priorities should be?

Suber’s
answers to my ten questions are published below. Personally, what I found
noteworthy about them is that — along with most of the interviewees in this
series so far — Suber singles out for censure both the Finch Report and the subsequent
Research Councils UK (RCUK) OA policy, in which researchers are exhorted to favour gold OA over green OA, and permitted
to opt for hybrid OA.

Like many OA
advocates, Suber also argues that green OA is a more effective and efficient strategy
for achieving Open Access than gold OA in the short term. As he puts it, “[I]t’s
still the case that green scales up faster and less expensively than gold. I
want us to work on scaling up gold, developing first-rate OA journals in every
field and sustainable ways to pay for them. But that’s a long-term project, and
we needn’t finish it, or even wait another day, before we take the sensible,
inexpensive, and overdue step of adopting policies to make our entire research
output green OA.”

He adds, “I
still believe that green and gold are complementary, and that in the name of
good strategy we should take full advantage of each. From this perspective, my
chief disappointment with the RCUK policy is that it doesn’t come close to
taking full advantage of green.”

And like the
majority of interviewees in this series, Suber deprecates hybrid OA. “Bottom line: hybrid
journals offer very little OA content and still charge subscriptions, and
therefore offer very little help to authors or readers and no help at all to
libraries.”

However, unlike
earlier interviewees, Suber makes a point of deploring the phenomenon that has
come to blight the OA movement like nothing else — what he refers to as the “cancerous
growth of scam or predatory OA journals”.

But lest there
be any doubt, Suber has much to say that is positive about OA as well, and he takes
the opportunity to underline his continuing belief in its ultimate success, and
the many benefits he expects it to bring. “A couple of years after Budapest, we
already had worldwide momentum for OA,” he says. “Today policy makers agree
that the question is not whether to make the shift to OA, but how.”

But don’t
listen to me, read the careful, measured and informative words of Suber himself
in the Q&A below.

Q:
What in your view have been the major achievements of the OA movement since you
helped draft the definition of OA in Budapest in 2001?

A: There
are many small stories and one big one. First, there's a very large
cluster of very concrete achievements: the launching of thousands of new OA
journals, the conversion of hundreds of TA [Toll Access, or subscription] journals
to OA, the launch of thousands of new OA repositories, the adoption of scores
of funder OA policies, the adoption of hundreds of university OA policies, and
the opening of millions of new and previously published works of
scholarship. On top of that we can point to steadily improving stakeholder
education about what OA is and what it is not.

These achievements were small, local steps taken in the hope that
they would accumulate, inspire further steps, build on one another,
and join up to create a critical mass for global change. The big story
is that this is working. A couple of years after Budapest, we already had
worldwide momentum for OA. Today policy makers agree that the question is not
whether to make the shift to OA, but how.

Q:
What have been the main disappointments?

A:
I’m disappointed that so many hoary myths and misunderstandings about OA are
still repeated by people who should know better. We still hear policy-makers,
journalists, and Ph.D. academics assert or assume that all or most OA is gold
OA, that all or most OA journals charge publication fees, that all or most
publication fees are paid by authors out of pocket, that all or most authors
who publish in conventional or non-OA journals must give up the chance to make
the same articles OA, that OA journals can’t attain the quality of the
best TA journals, that green OA must be embargoed, that green OA can't belibre, that permission for OA must be granted by publishers
rather than retained by authors, and that the costs of OA exceed the
benefits.

Just a minute ago I said that improving stakeholder education
was one of our major achievements. That's true, but it’s just one side of
a two-sided truth. The curve is up but the slope is shallow. Over the last
decade, we’ve seen an unmistakable net rise in accurate understanding about OA.
The rise has been respectable but insufficient. It’s especially respectable
considering the depth of change we were proposing and the FUD we were opposing.
But we still have a long way to go.

I’m disappointed by the cancerous growth of scam or predatory OA
journals, by the assumption in some quarters that all or most OA journals are
predatory, and by the spectacle of predatory OA getting more press attention
than honest OA. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Outside the subculture of
sports fans, dishonest athletes get more attention than honest athletes. But at
least we can say plainly that this kind of coverage is unfair to the honest
majority, and we can’t excuse the unfairness on the ground that the distinction
between honest and dishonest athletes — or honest and dishonest bankers,
politicians, and journalists — is somehow difficult to grasp.

I’m heartened by the steady growth in the number of OA policies
and funders and universities. But I’m disappointed that too many policies are
weak, and that too many disregard the experience of other institutions when
drafting their own policies. I’m also disappointed that the number of funders
and universities with strong OA policies is small compared to the number of
funders and universities worldwide. I’m disappointed that virtually all
universities create incentives to publish new work in specific journals, often
based on bogus metrics, and that relatively few universities have policies or
incentives to deposit versions of the same work in their OA repositories.

I’m disappointed that the majority of OA journals still use
all-rights-reserved copyrights rather than open licenses. This is entirely due
to misunderstandings by friends and allies, not lobbying by
opponents. I’m disappointed that most OA journals don’t understand the benefits
of open licenses, and don’t understand their own power to make use of them.

Finally — to cut the list short — I’m disappointed with the RCUK policy. I’m disappointed that the UK government put more
publishers than researchers on the Finch Group.
I’m disappointed that the group gave a higher priority to insuring
publishers against risk than assuring public access to publicly-funded
research. I’m disappointed that the government accepted this recommendation as
fulfilling its responsibility to serve the public interest. I’m disappointed by
the evident belief among UK policy-makers that if OA is good, then RCUK
policy must be good, and by the growing belief among UK researchers that if the
RCUK policy is bad, then OA itself must be bad.

Q:
There has always been a great deal of discussion (and disagreement) about the different
roles that Green and Gold OA should play. In light of recent developments (e.g.
the OSTP Memorandum, the RCUK OA Policy, and the European Research Council Guidelineson OA) what would you say should be the respective roles of Green and Gold OA
today?

A: It
is still the case that green OA can be mandated without violating academic
freedom, and gold OA cannot. If we ever reach the point when virtually all
peer-reviewed journals are OA, then gold OA mandates will be as compatible
with author choice as green OA mandates. But we haven’t reached that point
and we’re not even close. That's why all OA mandates have been green, and why
all OA mandates should still be green. Policy makers can encourage gold, pay
for gold, and create incentives for gold. But when they require OA, they should
require green.

Moreover, it’s still the case that green scales up faster and less
expensively than gold. I want us to work on scaling up gold, developing
first-rate OA journals in every field and sustainable ways to pay for them. But
that’s a long-term project, and we needn’t finish it, or even wait another day,
before we take the sensible, inexpensive, and overdue step of adopting policies
to make our entire research output green OA.

Gold OA has its own advantages of course. It provides its own peer
review, and can bring its own revenue stream. While green OA can be
unembargoed, gold is always unembargoed. And while green can be libre, it's
easier for gold to be libre — even if most OA journals fail to seize that
opportunity and still use all-rights-reserved copyrights.

I say more about the relative advantages of green and gold, and
make the general argument that green and gold are complementary, in Chapter
3 of my book — which is now
OA, by the way.

I still believe that green and gold are complementary, and that in
the name of good strategy we should take full advantage of each. From this
perspective, my chief disappointment with the RCUK policy is that it doesn’t
come close to taking full advantage of green. As I argued last September, the result is that the UK will “pay more than necessary,
make the transition slower than necessary, leave a regrettable percentage of
publicly-funded research non-OA, and put the business interests of publishers
ahead of the access interests of researchers.”

Q:
What about Hybrid OA?

A: Hybrid
is a risk-free way for TA publishers to experiment with OA, and many
conventional publishers are offering it. However, they aren’t offering it
because they support OA, but because it's risk-free and a growing number of
funders are willing to pay for it. The uptake from authors is very low,
and because hybrid journals can always fall back on subscriptions, publishers have no
incentive to increase author uptake. Bottom line: hybrid
journals offer very little OA content and still charge subscriptions,
and therefore offer very little help to authors or readers and no help at all
to libraries.

I completely support the policy of the Compact for Open-Access
Publishing Equity (COPE)
not to pay publication fees at hybrid journals. For the same reason, I oppose
the RCUK policy to pay publication fees at hybrid OA journals, and especially its policy to pay double-dipping hybrid
journals. Funders willing to pay
publication fees to support OA should use their leverage to get journals to
convert to full or non-hybrid OA.

Q:
How would you characterise the current state of OA, both in North America and
internationally?

A: In
the US, we have strong policies moving forward in both the legislative and
executive branches. In Congress, the Fair Access to Science and Technology
Research Act (FASTR) has bipartisan support in both chambers. FASTR has new
libre requirements which make it even stronger than its predecessor, the
Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA). As of today FASTR has three co-sponsors in the Senate and
11 in the House.

On the executive side, the Obama
administration has ordered nearly two dozen
federal funding agencies to adopt libre green OA policies for both publications
and data. The policies are due late next month. Soon after that, we should see
the acceptable ones start to take effect and the unacceptable ones sent back to
the drawing board to be made acceptable.

While these policies are taking shape, the NIH policy is becoming
more effective. After it announced new steps to enforce its mandate earlier
this spring, its compliance rate has grown quickly and is now above 80%.

We even have strong OA bills popping up at the state level. A pro-OA
bill was recently adopted in Illinois, and good
bills are pending in California and New
York. A pro-OA bill was introduced but defeated
in North Dakota. An anti-OA bill in Mississippi was defeated last year, but
back this year for another go.

The rest of North America is pulling in the same
direction. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
strengthened its OA policy earlier this year. Now the Social Science and
Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the National Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada (NSERC) are developing their own OA policies with the goal of
harmonizing with the CIHR, the US, and the EU. The National
Autonomous University of Mexico adopted a strong OA policy in 2011, and the
Mexican Congress is currently considering a bill introduced by Senator Ana Lilia
Herrera Anzaldo to require OA to publicly-funded
research.

Q:
What still needs to be done, and by whom?

A: My
list of what we still have to do is a lot like my list of our accomplishments —
more university policies, more funder policies, more OA
repositories, more OA journals, and more stakeholder understanding. These
are the same lists because on every important front we’ve come a long way and
still have further to go.

Most of these actions can be taken by academics themselves, and by
academics I mean faculty, librarians, and administrators. At private funding
agencies, only the foundation managers can adopt OA policies, and at public
funders only agency heads or elected officials can do so. But those elected
officials listen to voters and major institutions, like universities, in their
districts. Only publishers can launch new OA journals, or convert TA journals
to OA. But one fact of life in the internet age is that the barrier of entry to
the category of publishers has disappeared. Established publishers now coexist
with lean and mean OA start-ups, and with libraries redefining what it means to
share research with patrons.

Q:
What in your view is the single most important task that the OA movement should
focus on today?

A: University
and funder policies. It’s still the case the pace of OA depends on author
decisions, because authors decide whether to submit their work to OA journals,
whether to deposit it in OA repositories, and how to transfer their copyrights.
And it's still the case that universities and funding agencies are in the best
position to influence author decisions.

Funder policies cover a larger swath of research, and university
policies cover a larger swath of researchers. If I had to choose, I'd give a
slightly higher priority to university policies. Apart from reaching more
authors, they have a better chance of creating a research culture in which OA
is rewarded, habitual, second-nature. However, I'll also add that we don't have
to choose, and should work energetically for both kinds of policies.

Most university policies since 2008 have been adopted by faculty
votes. Hence, putting university policies at the top of my priority list also
puts faculty education about OA at the top of the list alongside it.

Q:
What does OA have to offer the developing world?

A: Access!
The demand for OA is greatest in the developing world, where subscription
access is least affordable and where subscriptions donated by HINARI-like
programs don't close the gap. Researchers in the global south know this well and
are among the most determined advocates for OA.

But there’s another layer to this demand. OA doesn’t merely share
the research published in the north with researchers in the south. It goes
beyond north-south and north-north access to south-north and south-south
access. Again, researchers in the global south know this too. They don’t want
OA merely as readers. They also want it as authors. They want to read
cutting-edge developments in their field, regardless of where the research was
undertaken or published. And they want their own work to be known to colleagues
elsewhere, whether those colleagues work in affluent or indigent institutions,
and whether they live across the world or in a neighbouring city.

Priced access is stratified and unequal access. This isn’t merely
a frustration to those excluded. It’s a brake on progress in every field of
science and scholarship.

Q:
What are your expectations for OA in 2013?

A: Nearly
two dozen federal agencies in the US will adopt green OA mandates, both for
peer-reviewed articles and for data. The EU will adopt a green OA mandate
for €70.2 billion worth of EU-funded research. The RCUK policy will
continue to cost needless money, enrich incumbent publishers, and antagonize
researchers who would otherwise be the natural allies of OA.

Thanks to initiatives from Global Research Council (May 2013),
Science Europe (April 2013), and the G8 Science Ministers (June 2013), there
will be many new OA policies at other funding agencies around the world. Thanks
to ongoing work by groups like Electronic Information for Libraries
(EIFL), Enabling Open Scholarship (EOS), SPARC, and, if I may, the Harvard
Open Access Project (HOAP), there will also be many new OA policies at
universities around the world.

Q:
Will OA in your view be any less expensive than subscription publishing? If so,
why/how? Does cost matter anyway?

A:
If it’s implemented well, OA will be less expensive. Here's how I put it
in my book (at p.
143).

“There are reasons to think that OA journals cost less
to produce than toll-access journals of the same quality. OA journals
dispense with subscription management (soliciting, negotiating, tracking,
renewing subscribers), dispense with digital rights management
(authenticating users, distinguishing authorized from unauthorized,
blocking access to unauthorized), eliminate legal fees for
licensing (drafting, negotiating, monitoring, and enforcing restrictive
licenses), and reduce or eliminate marketing. In their place they add back
little more than the cost of collecting publication fees or institutional
subsidies.”

In the book I cite several studies supporting these conclusions,
and in my updates to that section of the book I cite several
more.

On the other hand, OA could be at least as expensive as subscription
publishing if it’s implemented badly, for example, by putting policy in the
hands of publishers with a track record of opposing OA.

There’s a sense in which cost doesn’t matter. I’ve often
argued that OA brings so many benefits to authors and readers that it would be
a bargain even if it cost more than TA. However, there’s another sense in
which cost matters a great deal. When OA is badly implemented and needlessly
expensive, then people who are only paying partial attention can easily
conclude that OA itself is needlessly expensive, when they should conclude that
only a poor implementation is needlessly expensive.

Moreover, there’s no doubt that we’ll make faster progress if the
academic and public-good arguments for OA are joined by economic and bean-counting
arguments for OA.

For anyone
interested in finding out more about Peter Suber I have previously conducted
two interviews with him, first (2007) as part of the Basement Interviews series, more recently (2011) for Information today.

7 comments:

Just a question about this: "Priced access is stratified and unequal access. This isn’t merely a frustration to those excluded. It’s a brake on progress in every field of science and scholarship."Are there any (OA) studies on the actual impact of that brake to development? Thanks for this interview and the whole series. It's fantastic.

Peter notes the damage that the publisher lobby has successully inflicted on worldwide (but especially UK) OA progress with the Finch/RCUK policy, but I'm sure he will agree that if the Trojan Horse of CHORUS were to be accepted by the US federal government and its funding agencies, the damage would be even greater and longer lasting:

CHORUS is an attempt by the publishing lobby to take compliance with Green OA mandates out of the hands of the fundees whom OA mandates are designed to require to provide OA, and instead transfer control over the execution, the locus and the timetable for mandate compliance into the hands of publishers.

Adopting CHORUS would mean that President Obama's OSTP directive -- requiring that federally funded research must be made freely accessible online within 12 months of publication -- would instead ensure that it was made freely accessible after 12 months, and not one minute earlier;.

And CHORUS would ensure also that the authors whom all Green OA mandates worldwide are designed to require to provide OA -- because they want OA yet dare not provide it without a mandate from their institutions or funders, for fear of their publishers -- would no longer be affected by any mandate:

With CHORUS, publishers would have succeeded in locking in 12-month-embargoed Delayed Access instead of immediate Green OA for years to come, in the US and, inevitably, also worldwide.

So, as I am sure Peter will agree, CHORUS must be rejected at all costs, just as the previous Trojan Horses of the publishing lobby -- PRISM and the Research Works Act -- were rejected. It's bad enough that Finch slipped through.

Even if the publiser gives subscribing institutions a rebate to offset double-dipping, Hybrid Gold locks in current total publisher revenue -- from institutional subscription fees plus author hybrid Gold OA fees -- come what may. Hybrid Gold immunizes publishers from any pressure to cut costs by phasing out obsolete products and services in the online era.

Only globally mandated Green OA self-archiving in repositories by authors can force publishers to downsize to the post-Green essentials alone.

And if a hybrid Gold journal also imposes an embargo on Green, that is tantamount to legally sanctioned extortion, even without double-dipping: "If you want to provide immediate OA, you must pay me even more than I am already being paid by your institution for subscriptions -- and your institution only gets back a tiny fraction of the rebate from your surcharge."

(This is also the option to which CHORUS, in tandem with Finch, would hold immediate OA hostage for many years more. Since immediate OA is optimal for research, hence inevitable, publishers, if funders take in their Trojan Horse, will have succeeded in delaying OA for as long as they possibly could, in defence of their current revenue streams. This is also the publishers' self-serving scenario in which COPE institutions would unwittingly collude, if they funded Gold OA without first mandating immediate-deposit Green OA.)

3. Pre-Green Fools Gold vs. Post-Green Fair Gold: The only thing that can bring the cost of peer-reviewed journal publishing down to a fair, affordable, sustainable price is globally mandated Green OA. Only Green OA will allow institutions to cancel their journal subscription subscriptions, thereby forcing journals to adapt naturally to the online era by cutting obsolete costs, downsizing and convert ingto Fair Gold. It is the global network of Green OA repositories that will allow publishers to phase out all the products and services associated with access-provision and archiving, once Green OA mandates fill them. CHORUS and Finch are designed to allow publishers to keep co-bundling (and charging) for their obsolete products and services as long as possible.

A few days ago I was contacted by a colleague who had just discovered that one of her open-access articles had been modified and reprinted in a for-profit collection without her knowledge or permission.

She, and almost everyone else I've discussed this with, did not realize that this commercial reuse was not only a theoretical possibililty (permitted by the standard CC-BY license) but a common reality exploited by a number of unscrupulous publishers. She now says she won't publish any more open-access papers.

I think the publishers of open-access journals need to do a much better job of informing authors of the real implications of their CC-BY licensing. Since this may also deter authors from OA publishing, they may also need to provide alternative licenses (e.g. CC-NC-BY).

Thanks for the comment Rosie. I am wondering what specifically you object to here: the fact that the text was modified, the fact that the text was commercially reused, the fact that some OA publishers use CC-BY, or all three things?